dangerous territory/devil's advocate

[The Good Reverend Roger]

There is welfare fraud that will never show up in statistics. But that is an extreme minority of cases and not my focus. My point is that the entire system is designed wrong. The rules are set up against success, so we trap people on welfare. I would love to see MORE flagrant welfare fraud, as it is defined now, because if people on welfare are able to make real money they would be more likely to get off the system. As it is, people might make money but they dare not report it, because they will be dumped and possibly prosecuted for "fraud."

1.  Compare this with corporate welfare fraud.

2.  Followed to it's logical conclusion, we should now spend $1.00 to chase $0.10 in fraud.  Or we should eliminate welfare and watch people starve in the streets. 

Thing is, EVERY organization on the planet is inefficient.  There IS going to be some loss.  Do we worry about Joe Sixpack taking a few thousand under the table while he's on welfare, or do we worry more about things like TARP, which is measured in trillions and prevented not one person from starving to death?

[Placid Dingo]

On the Welfare thing, I tend to think that having a life I really love and adore where I have meaningful work and enough money to do cool shit is really satisfying. For this reason I don't really iderstand the moaning about other people on welfare; I'd be so unhappy like that, and you would too, so why are you bitching?

Yes, I agree that there does need to be some maths wizardry to make sure people aren't penalised for getting a job. Generally though, I tend to suspect that the most powerful thing is to market the idea of being free from wellfare. Promote programs that help people move location/get work and promote the fck out of why that makes you a happier person. I'm not sure if there's been a campaign like this but I can't help but feel it's more effective than making the whole process harder for everyone.

[Placid Dingo]

I don't have a lot of 'conservative' views but I do believe in censorship, especially of hate speech and of what can be produced commercially.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I don't have a lot of 'conservative' views but I do believe in censorship, especially of hate speech and of what can be produced commercially.

Say again?  You approve of censorship?

[The Johnny]

This thread delivers.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I am a flat-out Socialist and a social liberal. I believe in high government services, regulations on practices that impact the quality of life for citizens, and low government interference in individual lives and choices.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I am a flat-out Socialist and a social liberal. I believe in high government services, regulations on practices that impact the quality of life for citizens, and low government interference in individual lives and choices.

Same here, plus guns.

Because it just isn't America for me without random citizens walking around with projectile weapons.

[AFK]

And that's where I'm not willing to go that far left.  Individual freedom and liberty is important but at some point that needs to be ceded to some degree in the name of public health and public safety.  It seems like a disconnect to insist the government take a strong role in protecting citizens from organizations and practices but a soft role in protecting them from each other.


If people want to live in communities, I think there is an implicit agreement that people need to invest in promoting the safety and welfare of that community.  That, unfortunately, does require ceding some ground on absolute freedom.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

And that's where I'm not willing to go that far left.  Individual freedom and liberty is important but at some point that needs to be ceded to some degree in the name of public health and public safety.  It seems like a disconnect to insist the government take a strong role in protecting citizens from organizations and practices but a soft role in protecting them from each other.


If people want to live in communities, I think there is an implicit agreement that people need to invest in promoting the safety and welfare of that community.  That, unfortunately, does require ceding some ground on absolute freedom.

Then it's not freedom, it's privilege.

ETA:  The government can't do shit to make you safe, anyway.  All they can do is punish after the fact.

[AFK]

Or, that freedom comes with responsibility.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Or, that freedom comes with responsibility.

Freedom comes with nudity.  And fun.  And yeah, responsibility.  That being a personal thing, and not jammed up your colon by a government, at least until you do something directly harmful to someone else, or make trade/commerce either impossible or effectively monopolized.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Maybe. I just think Conservatives have a valid point that Welfare needs to be reformed because when people get on it, they often never get off. But where they see the "Welfare Queen," I se a welfare trap. There ARE people who are on welfare despite being able to work, and there does need to be enforcement to eliminate that.

Where I differ from Liberals is that I dont think society owes a paycheck to anyone who could be working, period. Where I differ from Conservatives is that I dont believe in just dumping people into poverty. To eliminate the welfare expenses we dont just need to cut them off, but train them for real jobs that can earn real money.

Not sure where you live, Vex, but in Texas cash welfare benefits are about $104 a month. That's a month, not a week. And it's a bitch to qualify even for that, a lot of people (who have been denied unemployment benefits which the state is also loathe to pay out, for instance) who need help can't get it.

I know what you're talking about from the old days, I've seen people have babies and stay on welfare until the kids were teenagers, then have another crop of babies so they could continue getting benefits, but I think the people who need help outnumber people like this by far. These were fucked up people, BTW, usually hard alcoholics who supplemented their benefits with prostitution. Cutting welfare didn't make everything all better, obviously.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Inspired by events in the Discordian Feminism thread. I don't want to threadjack that one too much so I'm starting this thread. The following are questions that are maybe rhetorical, but I think deserve to be asked and considered (even if not answered).

- Do you hold any beliefs or adhere to any political positions which could be construed as "Conservative" by current and popular use of that word?

Nope.

I don't subscribe to "Liberalism" per se. I think that anything consensual between adults that isn't hurting anyone else is not a crime, and if anybody needs help, something should be available. Apparently this makes me a flaming Liberal.

- Is it possible that "Liberalism" assumes itself to be correct in the same self-congratulatory, evidence-deficient way that "Conservatism" does? If so, what issues may be examples of that?

Of course.

- Could it be that PDCOM engages in openly, by-the-book Liberal philosophy (moral and political), and eschews all Conservative approaches almost as predictably as the Huffington Post, while claiming a title of "beyond the left/right paradigm" anyway?

I ask these only because I think that there may be some truth to some claims by Conservatives in some areas, which are dismissed out of hand by Liberals because of all the nutjobbery that goes on at the extremities of the Right. And I'd hate to think that PD is guilty of flushing good ideas, or even bad ideas that are worth exploring, just because of a predisposition toward certain mainstream political positions.

I see a difference.

"Liberal" gets conflated with "Democrat" these days. Democrats are not liberals, they're just slightly less idiotically right wing than republicans.

Nobody here is cheering Obama, obviously. PD is not Huff Post. There's an effort made to just see things as they are. 

[Faust]

There's some pretty extensive welfare studies out there. The bottom line on most of them is that a there is a noise floor or about 4-5% of the population who are incapable of working either because of disorders psychological and physical who don't qualify for disability, these can often be attributed to nervous disorders, depression, and what was very surprising is undiagnosed anaemia leading to lethargic behaviour.

In a recession, economic factors can push that as high as 8-12 percent, this is a normal figure. Not something abhorrent. Ireland's is 14% and Greeces which is a disaster scenario is 22%

Google tells me the America's is 8% which is not bad considering it was the country that gut raped the world economy in 2008.

I always wonder why people talk about people unwilling to get off of welfare. They don't make up a large enough % to be worth noting. There are far greater saving to be made by focusing on the people who are interested in working but unable.
The back to work scheme is a good idea and has saved a ton for Ireland. While our 14% figure is high it includes 2% people on this scheme which operates as follows.

Workers are found internships with businesses. Often SME's who are struggling for labour. The state still provides them with 120 a week and the company pays 50. These have had excellent follow on results where the internship ends and the person is trained so the business hires them instead of retraining someone else.

I mean savings for the state are more readily available elsewhere anyway. For instance::


America, you are really looking a little chubby around the edges, did you really need to have a 24% slice of defence pie?

Actually now that I notice it I see the far more alarming figure of 4% education. How is this possible, how can you run an education system on so little?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Google tells me the America's is 8% which is not bad considering it was the country that gut raped the world economy in 2008.

Two things:

1.  Our BLS lies and ADMITS it lies.  The real number is about 13%.

2.  You can't really call it rape if people eagery line up for it.